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EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS 


BY ALLEN H. BENT 


[Reprinted from Appalachia, Vol. XIII, No. 1] 












Early American Mountaineers. 

By Allen II. Bent. 

Along the western parts of North and South America, sweep¬ 
ing from Alaska to Patagonia, runs the longest mountain system 
in the world, krom Mt. McKinley to Aconcagua, 1 the culminat¬ 
ing points in the north and south, the one 20,300 feet high, the 
other 23,080 feet, the distance is over 8500 miles, and the moun¬ 
tains still extend 1500 miles farther to the south. In eastern 
North America, stretching from the Gaspd Peninsula to Georgia, 
is another long range, containing, in eastern Canada, New York, 
and New England, some of the oldest mountains in the world, 
and because of their age relatively low. Both of these systems 
contain many interesting peaks. 

While it is only in recent years that their beauty and majesty 

1 Aconcagua, although situated near one of the main routes of travel from 
Chile to Argentina, — the Cuinbre Pass, where at a height of 12,000 feet the 
peace statue, Christ of the Andes, was erected in 1004, — was not attempted until 
1883, when l>r. Paul Giissfeldt, with one Chilian, reached a point about 1300 
feet from the top. In January, 1807, it was ascended for the first time by Mattias 
Zurbriggen, the Swiss guide who accompanied Edward A. Fitzgerald's party, 
organized for that purpose. 

The first white men to cross the Andes were Pizarro and his soldiers on their 
way to conquer Peru in 1532. Two years later Alvarado and his army crossed 
them in what is now Ecuador. Father Jos£ de Acosta, one of the early chroni¬ 
clers, ordered to Peru in 1570, says that “ the mountain Nevada of Spaine, the 
Pirenees and the Alps of Italie are as ordinarie houses in regard to hie Towers ” 
when compared to the Andes. For many years Chimborazo was supposed to be 
the highest mountain in the world. 


4G 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


have been widely appreciated, still mountain climbing in Amer¬ 
ica began early, and for three centuries, from the year 1519, 
when the conquering Spaniards attempted Popocatepetl, 17,520 
feet in height, until 1818, when Captain Alexander Gerard, a 
young Scotsman, reached 19,411 feet on Mt. Tahigung in the 
Himalayas, 1 the supremacy, as far as height is concerned, re¬ 
mained in America. It may have been in South America for 
a few years, since on March 28, 1677, the Peruvian volcano, El 
Misti, rising 19,200 feet above the sea and 11,700 feet above 
the city of Arequipa, was ascended by a Spanish expedition, 
under R. P. Fr. Alvaro Melendez, “sent by ecclesiastic and 
royal authority to investigate the cause of a dense column of 
smoke seen rising from its summit. . . . They exorcised the 
crater, cast in holy relics, celebrated mass and set up a great 
cross on the highest place.” 2 In later times Alexander von 
Humboldt and Aime Bonpland claimed to have reached, in June, 
1802, an altitude of 19,286 feet on Chimborazo in Ecuador, but 
Edward Whymper, who finally conquered it in 1880, proves con¬ 
clusively that the earlier climbers did not reach any such alti¬ 
tude as they supposed. 

The story of the earliest ascent of Popocatepetl is told in a 
long official letter written by Hernando Cortes from Mexico 
City, October 30, 1520, to the Emperor Charles V, and printed 
in Seville in 1522. The Conqueror of Mexico says: — 

Eight leagues from the city of Cholula are two very lofty and re¬ 
markable mountains ; 3 in the latter part of August their summits are 
covered with snow; and from the highest, by night as well as by day, 
a volume of smoke arises, equal in bulk to a spacious house ; it ascends 
above the mountain to the clouds as straight as an arrow, and with 
such force, that although a very strong wind is always blowing on the 
mountain, it does not turn the smoke from its course. As I have desired 

1 Previous to the year 1818 the imperious Himalayas were practically un¬ 
known to the Western world. Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore, March 14, 
1818) records that “ late travellers in the interior of India give us an account of 
a chain of mountains rising from the valley of Nepaul, called the ‘ Himalay chain,’ 
the summit of whose highest peak is estimated at 26,402 feet above the level of 
the sea.” 

2 In 1803 the Harvard College Astronomical Observatory, whose director was 
the founder and first president of this Club, had a meteorological station built on 
top. It is from the Annals of the Observatory that these facts have been ascertained. 

3 The lower mountain is Ixtaccihuatl, “ the White Lady,” 17,340 feet. 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


47 


to render your Highness a very minute account of everything in this 
part of the world, 1 wished to ascertain the cause of this phenomenon, 
and I despatched ten of my companions, such as I thought suitable for 
this purpose, with several natives of the country for guides, charging 
them to use every endeavor to ascend the mountain and find out the 
cause of that smoke, whence and how it was produced. They went, and 
struggled with all their might to reach the summit, but were unable on 
account of the great quantity of snow that lay on the mountain, and 
the whirlwinds of ashes that swept over it, and also because they found 
the cold above insupportable ; but they reached very near the summit, 
and while they were there, the smoke began to issue forth with such 
force and noise that it seemed as if the whole Sierra was crumbling to the 
ground; so they descended and brought with them a considerable quan¬ 
tity of snow and icicles, that we might see them, as it was something 
quite new in this region on account of its being in so warm a latitude. 

In a later letter, written May 15, 1522, and printed in 1523, 
Cortes gives further particulars : — 

In my former relation I informed your Majesty of a conical moun¬ 
tain of great height, from which smoke issues almost continually. As 
the Indians told us it was dangerous to ascend this mountain, and fatal 
to those who made the attempt, I caused several Spaniards to under¬ 
take it, and examine the character of the summit. At the time they 
went up, so much smoke proceeded from it, accompanied by loud 
noises, that they were either unable or afraid to reach the mouth. 
Afterwards I sent up some other Spaniards, who made two attempts, 
and finally reached the aperture of the mountain, whence the smoke 
issued, which was two bow-shots wide, and about three-fourths of a 
league in circumference ; and they discovered some sulphur around it, 
which the smoke deposited. During one of their visits they heard a 
tremendous noise, followed by smoke, when they made haste to de¬ 
scend ; but before they reached the middle of the mountain there fell 
around them a heavy shower of stones, from which they were in no 
little danger. The Indians considered it a very great undertaking to 
go where the Spaniards had been. 

Thus it will be seen that the time-honored story that Cortes 
sent some of his men up Popocatepetl to get sulphur for gun¬ 
powder was not the cause of this first high mountain ascent. 
The climbers really deserve more applause from the hands of 
mountaineers than they have received. 1 

1 The Roche Melon, 11,G40 feet, on the French-Italian border, was the high¬ 
est point previously reached. 


48 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


Diego de Ordaz, who led the first party in 1519, was born at 
Castro Verde, in Portugal, in 1485, and died in Venezuela in 
1533. He went to South America while still a youth, served 
under Diego Velasquez in Cuba, and in 1518 joined Cortes, 
under whose command he remained for many years. From 1531 
until his death he was in South America, where he discovered 
the Orinoco Kiver and explored it for some two hundred miles. 
Altogether he may well be called an American. Little is known 
of Francesco Montano, the leader of the expedition that finally 
reached the crater, except that he remained in Mexico after the 
Conquest and that his daughter received a pension from the 
government. 

The climb of Ordaz so impressed the Emperor that he granted 
him a coat of arms with a burning mountain on it. A search 
for this escutcheon has proved unsuccessful, but another coat 
of arms with a “ volcan ” has come to light, granted to Alonso 
Cabezas in 1543 for pursuing and killing a troublesome Indian 
chief, on a Guatemala volcano, a reminder of the long line of 
mighty cones in Central America of which we know so little. 
“ Somewhere on that line, smoke is ever rising; and at night 
the mariner along the Pacific coast sees the beacon fires lighted 
by no mortal hand.” 

From the “ Smoking Mountain ” and “ White Lady ” of Mex¬ 
ico to the White Mountains of New Hampshire is a long flight. 
Mt. Washington, rising about 4700 feet from “’the straths and 
green valleys below ” and 6293 feet above the sea, was the 
first mountain to be climbed in what is now the United States. 
In 1642, when this was done, it was a large undertaking. The 
only account of the ascent is in Governor John Wintlirop’s 
journal, which was not published until 1790. 

June 1642. Darby Field . . . being accompanied with two indians, 
went to the top of the white hill. He made his journey in eighteen 
days. His relation, at his return was, that it was about 160 miles from 
Saco, that after forty miles travel, he did, for the most part ascend ; 
and within twelve miles of the top was neither tree nor grass, but low 
[savins] which they went on the top of sometimes, but a continual ascent 
upon rocks, on a ridge between two vallie, filled with snow, out of 
which came two branches of Saco river which met at the foot of the hill 
where was an indian town of some 200 people; some of them accom- 


APPALACHIA, VOL. XIII 


Plate XIV 




(I) DIEGO DE ORDAZ, THE FIRST PIONEER IN AMERICAN 
MOUNTAINEERING, EXPLORING THE VOLCANO TLASCALA 

Part of title-page to Herrara's Historia, I 60 I 

(2) THE FIRST ATTEMPT ON POPOCATEPETL 

From an old engraving in Ogilby's America, I 67 I 














EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


49 


panied him within eight miles of the top, but durst go no further, tell¬ 
ing him that no indian ever dared to go higher, and that he would die 
if he went. So they staid there ’till his return, and his two indians 
took courage by his example and went with him. They went divers 
times thro’ the thick clouds for a good space, and within four miles of 
the top they had no clouds, but very cold. . . . The top of all was a 
plain about sixty feet square. On the North side there was such a 
precipice as they could scarce discern to the bottom. . . . About a month 
after he went again with five or six in his company. 

The story of Darby Field has already been told in Appala¬ 
chia. 1 But little is known of him. He came probably from 
Boston, England, about 1638, and settled near Portsmouth, 
N. H., where he died about 1649. 

The tops of the northern peaks of the Presidential range, 
Mts. Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, were not reached and 
measured until 1820, when Major John W. Weeks 2 (1781- 
1853), afterwards member of Congress, and his brother-in-law, 
Adino N. Brackett (1777-1847), clerk of the Coos County 
court, spent four nights on the range, the last one, August 31, 
on top of Mt. Washington, — probably the first night it was oc¬ 
cupied by human beings. Both of these men lived in Lan¬ 
caster. These peaks, excepting Mt. Washington, — which first 
appears by name in Rev. Jeremy Belknap’s History of New 
Hampshire, Vol. 3, in 1792, —received their baptism in New 
England rum in July, 1820, when Philip Carrigain and others 
visited the mountains. Mt. Lafayette, the highest of the Fran¬ 
conia range, does not seem to have been climbed until 1826. 

Mt. Ivtaadn, the only mountain in New England, outside of 
the White Mountains 160 miles away, that is over a mile high, 
rises in solitary grandeur above the forests of Maine from 
a plateau only a few hundred feet above sea level. The first 
mention of it seems to be in the “ Memoirs of Odd Adventures, 
Strange Deliverances &c in the Captivity of John Giles, Esq., 
Commander of the Garrison on St. George’s River.” The book 
was published in Boston in 1736. The author says: — 

1 By Warren W. Hart in Vol. XI. June, 1908. 

2 It is interesting to note that, Weeks’s grand-nephew and namesake, John W. 
Weeks, member of Congress from Massachusetts, also a native of Lancaster, 
N. H., has in recent years led the fight in Congress for the preservation of the 
forests in the White Mountains. 


APPALACHIA XIII 


4 


50 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


I have heard an Indian say that he lived by the River at the Foot 
of the Teddon, 1 and in his Wigwam, seeing the top of it thro’ the Hole 
left in the top of the Wigwam for the passing of Smoke, he was 
tempted to travel to it: accordingly he set out early on a Summer’s 
Morning, and laboured hard in ascending the Hill all Day, and the 
top seemed as distant from the Place where he lodged at Night as 
from the Wigwam whence he began his Journey, and concluding that 
Spirits were there, never dared make a second Attempt. I have been 
credibly inform’d that several others have fail’d in the same Attempt. 

The first ascent of the mountain was made in 1804 by Charles 
Turner, Jr. (1760-1889), a surveyor engaged in locating the 
grants of Eastern Lands. He was a Massachusetts man, born 
in Duxbury, but made his home for the greater part of bis life 
in Scituate. He was postmaster, State senator, and member of 
Congress. One of his letters giving an account of his ascent 
was published in the “Collections of the Massachusetts His¬ 
torical Society” in 1826. It reads: — 

On Monday, August 13th (1804) at 8 o’clock a.m. we left our 
canoes at the head of boat-waters . . . and at five o’clock p.m. we 
reached the summit of the mountain. 

After giving an excellent description of the view he con¬ 
tinues : — 

The sun was now declining in the West, and we took leave of the 
summit of the mountain, after having deposited the initials of our 
names (William Howe, Amos Patten, Joseph Treat, Samuel Call, 
William Rice, Richard Winslow, Charles Turner Jun.) and the date, 
cut upon sheet lead, and a bottle of rum corked and leaded, on the 
highest part. We descended the mountain with cautious steps until 
we came among the low spruces, and the next day noon we reached 
our canoes. . . . The two Indians, whom we hired to pilot and assist 
us, cautioned us not to proceed if we should hear any uncommon 
noise; and when we came to the cold part of the mountain, they re¬ 
fused to proceed ahead — however, when they found that we were 
determined to proceed, even without them, they again went forward 
courageously, and seemed ambitious to be first on the summit. 

The Southern Appalachians are interesting in many ways : 
as being the highest points east of the Rockies, 2 for their magni- 

1 The word needs a k in front, of it to make it fully recognizable. 

2 The mountains of Northern Labrador may be slightly higher; they have not 
been accurately measured. 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


51 


ficent flora of rhododendron, kalmia, and azaleas in particular; 
and for their name. In North Carolina there are thirty-three, 
and in Tennessee sixteen, summits over G000 feet. Virginia 
has two peaks over 5000, while West Virginia, Kentucky, and 
Georgia have several over 4000 feet. 

The first white men to see these mountains were probably Pan- 
filodeNavaezand his ill-fated associates, 1 who landed at Apalaclie 
Bay on the Gulf side of Florida in 1528 and marched inland 
to the little Indian settlement of Apalaclie, in what is now 
Georgia. De Soto marching through Georgia in 1539 on his 
way to the Mississippi may have seen them. They appear, 
though without name, on Munster’s map (1540) ; but on Michael 
Lok’s map in Hakluyt’s Voyages, published in London in 1582, 
they are given a name, Apal(a)chen. On this same strange 
map the mountains of New England are also first given a de¬ 
finite name, Montes S. Johannis (Mountains of Saint John). 

Virginia was settled early, and it was not long before some 
of the more venturesome spirits burned to know something of 
the mountains that bounded their dim horizon to the west. In 
1653 it was enacted that — 

Whereas divers gentlemen have a voluntaire desire to discover the 
Mountains and supplicated for lycence to this Assembly . . . that 
order be granted unto any for soe doing, Provided they go with a con¬ 
siderable partie and strength both of men and ammunition. 

Captain Christopher Newport made an attempt before this, 
but came back exhausted long before he reached the Blue 
Ridge. 

“ The Present State of Virginia,” a little volume written by 
Hugh Jones, and published in London in 1724, gives an ac¬ 
count of the first real mountain expedition in the South in 
1716. 

Providence has secured us from them [the French, who had set¬ 
tled the interior of America] by a continuous Ridge of vast high 
Hills, called the Apelacliian Mountains. . . . Governor Alexander 
Spotswood when he undertook the great Discovery of the Passage over 
these Mountains, attended with a sufficient Guard and Pioneers and 

1 The commander and all but four of his followers lost their lives at the 
mouth of the Mississippi. The survivors made their way through Texas and 
Mexico to the Gulf of California, being the first to cross the American continent. 


52 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


Gentlemen, with a sufficient Stock of Provision, with abundant Fa¬ 
tigue passed those Mountains, and cut his Majesty’s Name in a Rock 
upon the Highest of them, naming it Mount George. ... For this Ex¬ 
pedition they were obliged to provide a great Quantity of Horse Shoes 
(Things seldom used in the lower Parts of the Country, where there 
are few Stones) Upon which Account the Governor upon their Return 
presented each of his Companions with a Golden Horse-Shoe (some 
of which I have seen studded with valuable Stones resembling the 
Heads of Nails) with this Inscription on the one Side: Sic juvat 
transcendare montes: And on the other is written The Tramontane 
Order. This he instituted to encourage Gentlemen to venture back¬ 
wards, and make Discoveries and new Settlements: any Gentleman 
being entitled to wear this Golden Shoe that can prove his having 
drank His Majesty’s Health upon Mount George. 

Here then was the first mountain club in America and an 
Appalachian Mountain club at that! 

“ The Natural History of North Carolina,” by John Brickell, 
M. D., published in Dublin in 1737, tells us of an early expedi¬ 
tion to the “ Appelapean Mountains ” in that state. 

The latter end of February, Anno Dom. 1730, we set out on our 
intended Journey, being in Number Ten White Men And Two Indians. 

. . . After fifteen Days Journey we arrived at the foot of the moun¬ 
tains . . . and were discovered by a party of Iroquois Indians. . . . 
their King desired to know whether we came for Peace or War. . . . 
We assured him that we were come with no other Design than a Curi¬ 
osity of viewing the Mountains. . . . The next Morning very early we 
set forward, and in the Evening got on the other side of the first 
Ridge of Mountains into a most beautiful Valley . . . After two 
Days Journey we arrived at another Ridge of rocky Mountains . . . 
much higher, having a beautiful Prospect of large Woods and Forrests 
as far as our sight would permit. From this mountain we returned 
making our Journey Eastward. 

Thomas Jefferson in his “ Notes on the State of Virginia,” 
first published in 1782, gives a more detailed description. 

To the South-west the mountains converge into a single ridge, which, 
as it approaches the Gulf of Mexico, subsides in a plain country, and 
gives rise to some of the waters of that gulf, and particularly to a river 
called the Apalachicola, probably from the Apalachies, an Indian na¬ 
tion formerly residing on it. Hence the mountains giving rise to that 
river, and seen from its various parts, were called the Apalachian 



EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


53 


mountains, being in fact the termination only of the great ridges pass¬ 
ing through the continent. European geographers however extended 
the name northwardly as far as the mountains extended. 

Jefferson also refers to some of the Indians calling them “ the 
Endless Mountains,” a name that appears on early maps. 

Andre Micliaux, the French botanist, visited North Carolina 
in 1795 and climbed Roan and Grandfather Mountains, and his 
son, F. A. Micliaux, followed in 1802. It was not until many 
years later that Elisha Mitchell (1793-1857), a native of Con¬ 
necticut and a graduate of Yale College, who went to the Uni¬ 
versity of North Carolina in 1818 as professor of mathematics, 
determined that the mountain upon which he finally lost his 
life, and which has for many years borne his name, was the 
highest of the entire Appalachian system. Soon after going to 
his adopted home, he began botanical and geological excursions 
and finally in July, 1835, stood on Mount Mitchell, 6711 feet, 
with his two guides, William Wilson and Adoniram Allen. In 
his account he says : — 

The Grandfather . . . has hitherto been generally supposed the 
highest mountain in North Carolina . . . Roan Mountain fifteen miles 
from the Grandfather, ... is the easiest of access, the most beautiful, 
and will best repay the labor of ascending it of all our high mountains. 
. . . The Black Mountain is a long ridge . . . and has some peaks of 
greater elevation than any point that has hitherto been measured in 
North America east of the Rocky Mountains. . . . The ascent of the 
Black Mountain is very difficult on account of the thick laurels, which 
are so closely set and their strong branches so interwoven, that a path 
cannot be forced by pushing them aside. ... At the time of our visit, 
the mountain was enveloped in mist . . . and we were so uncomfort¬ 
able from cold, that some of the company urged a return with the 
least possible delay, and this when it was clear weather at a small 
distance below the ridge, and the thermometer at 80 0 . 1 

Professor Mitchell visited the mountain on four other occa¬ 
sions, in 1838,1844,1856, and 1857. During a storm on his last 
visit he was killed on the mountain, evidently by a fall in the 
darkness. He was buried in Asheville, but a year later his 
body was removed and carried to the top of his mountain, where 
a funeral address was made by Bishop James II. Otey of Ten- 
1 American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 35, Jan. 1839. 


54 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


nessee, one of his first pupils. A monument twelve feet high 
was erected in 1888. 

At almost the same time that Mitchell was making his in¬ 
vestigations in North Carolina, the Adirondack Mountains in 
New York were just being explored. Previous to this time 
they had not even a name. In September, 1836, Professor 
Ebenezer Emmons, who had charge of the northern district of 
the newly created State Geological Survey, with his assistant, 
James Hall, climbed and measured Whitefaee. From the top 
they could see the highest peak among the mountains. Earlier 
in the same year William C. liedfield, the meteorologist, while 
following up the source of the Hudson River, saw the same 
high peak. The following year these three gentlemen, with 
John Torrey, the State botanist, and others succeeded in reach¬ 
ing the top. Professor Emmons (1800(?)-1863), who was a 
native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Williams College, 
in his second Report, published in 1838, gives an account of 
the ascent and of the naming of the mountains which had been 
so long and unaccountably neglected. 

As this tour of exploration was made . . . under the direction of 
the present Executive, whose interest in the Survey has been expressed 
both by public recommendation and private counsel and advice, it was 
thought that a more appropriate name could not be conferred on the 
highest summit than Mount Marcy. . . . The cluster of mountains in 
the neighborhood of the Upper Hudson and Ausable Rivers I pro¬ 
posed to call the Adirondack Group, a name by which a well-known 
tribe of Indians who once hunted here may be commemorated. 

William L. Marcy had been United States senator and was 
afterwards Secretary of War and Secretary of State. The 
mountain named after him is 5345 feet high. 

The Rocky Mountains, or the Shining Mountains, as they 
were at first called in the northern part of the United States — 
in Canada they bore the name of Stoney Mountains — were 
first seen by white men, January 1, 1743, by the Chevalier de 
la V^rendrye and his brother, after a long, hard journey from 
Canada, in search of a pathway to the Pacific. What they saw 
was probably the Bighorn range, 120 miles east of the Yellow¬ 
stone Park. Of course the lesser heights in Arizona and New 
Mexico had been seen by the Spaniards long years before. 


APPALACHIA, VOL. XIII 


Plate XV 



PIONEERS IN AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERING 

(I) EDWIN JAMES (1797-1861) (2) DAVID DOUGLASS (1798-1834) 

(3) ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD (I 676-1 740) (4) ZEBULON M. PIKE (1779-1813) 
(5) EBENEZER EMMONS (1800-1863) (6) ELISHA MITCHELL (1793-1857) 











































































EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


Captain Jonathan Carver in his “Travels through the Inte¬ 
rior Parts of North America,” published in 1778, says: — 

Some of the nations inhabiting those parts that lie to the west of the 
Shining Mountains have gold so plenty among them that they make 
their most common utensils of it. 

It was not until the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, that the 
Rocky Mountains became a part of the United States. In 
1805 the Government expedition under Captains Lewis and 
Clark crossed the Bitter Root Mountains in Montana and Idaho, 
and reached the Pacific Ocean. A year later Captain Zebulon 
M. Pike, afterwards brigadier-general in the regular army, fol¬ 
lowed the Arkansas River to its source in Colorado, and in 
November saw what he calls the Grand Peak in the Mexicali 
Mountains. Major Long afterwards called this James Peak, 
but Fremont named it Pike’s Peak, and such it has remained 
ever since, — the first snow mountain to catch the eyes of the 
pioneers on their way to the golden wealth of the West. It is 
14,108 feet high, rising from a plateau about six thousand feet 
above sea. 

Pike himself, in his “Account of Expeditions to the Sources 
of the Mississippi and through the western parts of Louisiana 
to the sources of the Arkansas,” printed in Philadelphia in 
1810, Saturday, 15th November (1806), wrote as follows: — 

At two o’clock in the afternoon I thought I could distinguish a 
mountain on our right. ... In half an hour they appeared in full 
view before us. When our small party arrived on the hill, they with 
one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican Mountains. Their ap¬ 
pearance can easily be imagined by those who have crossed the Alle¬ 
ghany, but their sides were whiter, as if covered with snow or a white 
stone. 

A week and a half later, on Wednesday, November 26, he 
wrote: — 

Expecting to return to our camp that evening we left all of our 
blankets and provisions at the foot of the mountain. ... We com¬ 
menced ascending, found it very difficult, being obliged to climb up 
rocks, sometimes almost perpendicular; and after marching all day, 
we encamped in a cave, without blankets, victuals or water. We had 
a fine clear sky, whilst it was snowing at the bottom. . . . 27th No¬ 
vember. Thursday. Arose hungry, dry and extremely sore, . . . 


56 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


but were amply compensated for toil by the sublimity of the prospects 
below. The unbounded prairie was overhung with clouds, which ap¬ 
peared like the ocean in a storm; wave piled on wave and foam¬ 
ing, whilst the sky was perfectly clear where we were. Commenced 
our march up the mountain, and in about one hour arrived at the 
summit of this chain: here we found the snow middle deep; no sign 
of beast or bird. The thermometer which stood at 9° above 0 at the 
foot of the mountain, here fell to 4° below 0. 1 The summit of the 
Grand Peak, which was entirely bare of vegetation and covered with 
snow, now appeared at the distance of fifteen or sixteen miles from 
us, and as high again as what we had ascended, and would have taken 
a whole day’s march to arrive at its base, when I believe no human 
being could have ascended to its pinnacle. This with the condition 
of my soldiers who had only light overalls on, and no stockings, . . . 
determined us to return. 

Certainly with his men thus clad in late November he was 
wise in not attempting further climbing. After measuring it 
— he computed it far too high — he continues: — 

Indeed it was so remarkable as to be known to all the savage na¬ 
tions for hundreds of miles around, and to be spoken of with admira¬ 
tion by the Spaniards of New Mexico, and was the bounds of their 
travel N. W. . . . It was never out of our sight (except when in a 
valley) from the 14th of November to the 27th January. 

Pike’s Peak was first climbed in 1820 by Edwin James, a 
young botanist and geologist, who thus describes it in his “ Ac¬ 
count of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains performed in the years 1819, 1820 by the order of the 
Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command of 
Major S. H. Long of the U. S. Topographical Engineers ”: — 

On the morning of the 14th (July) as soon as daylight appeared 
... we continued the ascent. ... A little above the point where the 
timber disappears entirely, commences a region of astonishing beauty. 
... It was about four o’clock p.m. when the party arrived on the 
summit. . . . The party remained only about half an hour ; in this 
time the mercury fell to 42°. 

James’s work was published in Philadelphia in two volumes 
in 1823, and the same year in London in three volumes. 

Edwin James (1797-1861) was a native of Vermont and a 

1 Reaumur, with the freezing point at zero. 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


57 


graduate of Middlebury College, and began his climbing in the 
Green Mountains of his native state. At the time of his west¬ 
ern trip, he was only twenty-three and had just finished his 
studies under Dr. John Torrey and Professor Amos Eaton. 
Most of his later life was spent in the West, partly as a surgeon 
in the United States Army and partly as a farmer in Iowa. 

Although Robert Stuart and his companions on their way 
back to the East from Astoria in 1812 had scrambled up a 
mountain side in Wyoming “the distance of eight painful 
miles ” and “ after pausing to repose and to enjoy these grand 
but savage and awful scenes ” l>ad begun the descent which 
was rugged and romantic, along deep ravines and defiles, 
overhung with crags and cliffs,” 1 Edwin James seems to have 
been the first real climber in the Rocky Mountains. The next 
was perhaps Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville (1795-1878), 
a West Point graduate, who was engaged in Government ex¬ 
plorations from 1831 to 1836. lie afterwards served through 
the Mexican War and was later brevetted brigadier-general, 
and died at a ripe old age in Arkansas. In September, 1833, 
he climbed what he thought to be not only the highest peak in 
the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming, but the loftiest point 
in North America, a hallucination that has possessed many an¬ 
other early climber. Washington Irving, who edited his jour¬ 
nal in 1837, gives a striking word picture of what he saw from 
the summit: — 

Here a scene burst upon the view of Captain Bonneville, that for a 
time astonished and overwhelmed him with its immensity. . . . 
Beneath him the Rocky Mountains seemed to open all their secret 
recesses. . . . The Indian fable seemed realized: he had attained 
that height from which the Blackfoot warrior, after death, first catches 
a view of the land of souls, and beholds the happy hunting grounds 
spread out below him, brightening with the abodes of the free and 
generous spirits. 

Ten years later, in August, 1843, John C. Fremont (1813- 
1890), who afterwards became a major general and candidate 
for President, but at the time a humble lieutenant in the United 
States army, appeared in the same region, climbed and measured 
one of the summits of what has for many years been called Fr6* 
1 The quotations are from Washington Irving’s “ Astoria.” 



58 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


mont Peak (13,790 feet), and claimed that he too had climbed 
the loftiest peak of the Rocky Mountains. 

Major John W. Powell (1834-1902), who had been through 
the Civil War, losing an arm at Shiloh, and who had just dis¬ 
tinguished himself by going through the Grand Canon of the 
Colorado River, in 1869 conquered Long’s Peak, 14,271 feet, 
in Northern Colorado. In 1881 lie succeeded Clarence King 
as Director of the United States Geological Survey. 

In later years several peaks have been found slightly higher 
than Pike’s Peak and many higher than Fremont’s. Altogether 
thirty-nine peaks over 14,000 feet high have been measured by 
Government surveyors in Colorado. California with twelve, 
and Washington with one, are the only other states having 
mountains over 14,000 feet. For many years Blanca Peak, 
14,390 feet, in the Sangre de Cristo Range, in Southern Colo¬ 
rado, was supposed to be the highest of the Rockies, but as far 
as mere height above the sea is concerned it has had to yield to 
Mount Massive and Elbert Peak in the Saguache (or Sawatch) 
Range, both, according to a recent Government survey (1911), 
about 14,402 feet. However, as the nearby city of Leadville is 
over 10,000 feet above tide-water, these highest peaks of the 
Rocky Mountains are easily attainable. They were both climbed 
in 1874, Mt. Massive by Henry Gannett, who has been Geo¬ 
grapher of the United States Geological Survey since 1882, and 
Elbert Peak by his assistant II. W. Stuckle. The latter was 
named after Samuel II. Elbert, Governor of Colorado Territory 
in 1873. Gold having been discovered in this region in 1859 
and prospecting actively prosecuted, they may have been climbed 
before. Blanca Peak, which is more distinctively a climb, was 
first ascended in 1875 by Franklin Rhodes and A. D. Wilson 
of the Hayden Survey. 

The supremacy shifted to South America in 1877, when — 
March 28 — the Peruvian volcano, El Misti, rising 19,200 feet 
above the sea and 11,700 feet above the city of Arequipa, was 
ascended by a Spanish expedition, under R. P. Fr. Alvaro Me¬ 
lendez, — “ sent by ecclesiastic and royal authority to investi¬ 
gate the cause of a dense column of smoke seen rising from its 
summit. . . . They exorcised the crater, cast in holy relics, cele¬ 
brated mass and set up a great cross on the highest place.” The 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


59 


fact that they found vestiges of a small stone structure in the 
crater, and that similar relics with human remains have been 
found on other high mountains, would seem to indicate that the 
Indians sometimes buried their chiefs upon the mountain tops. 
In 1893 the Harvard College Astronomical Observatory, whose 
director was the founder and first president of this Club, had a 
meteorological station built on top. It is from the Annals of 
the Observatory that these facts have been ascertained. 

The Canadian Rockies, and the Selkirk Mountains directly 
west, have claimed the attention of the best American climbers 
for the past quarter of a century, but with the exception of a sin¬ 
gle solitary climb, nothing was done in Canada previous to 1881, 
when Major A. B. Rogers (1829-1889), a native of Orleans, 
Massachusetts, the engineer in charge of building the mountain 
section of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with his nephew Albert 
Rogers, climbed Mt. Avalanche, 9387 feet, late in May and 
discovered Rogers Pass. Alexander Mackenzie, a young Scotch 
Highlander in charge of the Athabasca department of the North 
West Fur Company, the first white man to cross the Rockies, 
in 1793, did not have much to say about the mountains, nor did 
Simon Fraser, another “ Nor’wester,” who in 1806 followed 
down the river named after him, nor David Thompson, sur¬ 
veyor for the same company, who began his expeditions into 
the mountains in 1800 and in 1813-1814 made the first map of 
the region. The only mountain named by Thompson on his 
map is Mt. Nelson in the southern Selkirks. The whole range 
he calls the Nelson Range. It was not until after the death of 
Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk (1771-1820) and the 
consolidation (a year later) of the North West Company with 
its older rival, the Hudson Bay Company, that this recognition 
was made of the unselfish motives of the Scotch earl. Owning 
a controlling interest in the Hudson Bay Company he had tried 
to colonize western Canada. 

“ The North-west Passage by Land,” by Viscount Milton and 
W. B. Cheadle, M. D., published in London in 1865, seems to 
contain the first reference to Mt. Robson, which is called “ a 
giant among giants and immeasurably supreme,” although the 
authors were not in position to know that they were looking 
upon the highest of the Canadian Rockies. 


60 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


David Douglas (1798-1834), a Scotch botanist, was the first 
to do any actual climbing in Canada. After a long journey he 
reached the Athabasca Pass in April, 1827, and May 1 climbed 
the peak to the north of it. In an article published in the 
“ Companion to the Botanical Magazine,” Vol. 2, London, 1836, 
he wrote: — 

Its height does not appear to be less than 16,000 or 17,000 feet 
above the level of the sea. After passing over the lower ridge I came 
to about 1200 feet of by far the most difficult and fatiguing walking 
I have ever experienced and the utmost care was required. . . . The 
view from the summit is of too awful a cast to afford pleasure. Nothing 
can be seen in every direction except mountains towering above each 
other, rugged beyond description. The peak, the highest yet known 
in the northern continent of America, I feel sincere pleasure in nam¬ 
ing Mount Brown in honour of R. Brown, Esq., the illustrious botanist. 
... A little to the southward is one nearly the same height, rising into 
a sharper point; this I named Mount Hooker, in honour of my early 
patron, the Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow. This 
mountain, however, I was not able to climb. 

Robert Brown (1773-1858) was botanist of the Australian 
expedition of 1801 to 1805, and Sir William Jackson Hooker 
(1785-1865), director of Kew Gardens and author of “Flora 
Boreali Americana,” was the father of our late honorary mem¬ 
ber Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911). For over half a 
century Mts. Brown and Hooker were thought to be the culmi¬ 
nating points of the Rocky Mountains, but in 1892 Professor 
A. P. Coleman proved them to be only about 9000 feet high and 
another idol was shattered. David Douglas is nevertheless an 
interesting figure, for he seems to have been the first man to 
climb any of the Canadian Rockies and, besides a peak having 
his name, he has an enduring monument in the most majestic 
of northern trees, the Douglas spruce, which he is said to have 
discovered. He also discovered another magnificent mountain 
conifer, the sugar pine of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada. He 
was a great traveler, and wss killed by a wild bull in the Sand¬ 
wich Islands. 

The giants of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington 
were seen and named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792. 
In the first volume of his “ Voyage of Discovery to the North 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


61 


Pacific Ocean,” published in London in 1798, is an engrav¬ 
ing of Mount Rainier, for this, one of the last of the high 
mountains in the United States to be ascended, was the first 
to be pictured. The engraver was John Landseer, the father 
of Sir Edwin Landseer. The third volume of the same work 
contains an engraving of Mt. Saint Elias by James Fittler. 

Three or four quotations from Vancouver’s “ Voyage of Dis¬ 
covery” will perhaps be of interest here. 

April 30, 1792. The lofty mountain discovered in the afternoon 
by the third lieutenant, and in compliment to him called by me Mount 
Baker, rose a very conspicuous object 

May 7, 1792. The round snowy mountain now forming the south¬ 
ern extremity, and which, after my friend Rear Admiral Rainier, I 
distinguished by the name of Mount Rainier, hore N 42 E. 

October 20,1792. The clearness of the atmosphere enabled us to 
see the high round snowy mountain, noticed when in the southern parts 
of Admiralty inlet, to the southward of Mount Rainier. . . . This I 
have distinguished by the name of Mount St. Helens, in honor of his 
Britannic Majesty’s ambassador 2 at the court of Madrid. 

October 30, 1792. The same remarkable mountain that had been 
seen from Belle Vue point, again presented itself, and though the 
party were now nearer to it by 7 leagues, yet its lofty summit was 
scarcely more distinct. Lieut. Boughton honored it with Lord Hood’s 
name ; 1 its appearance was magnificent; and it was clothed in snow 
from its summit, as low down as the high land, by which it was inter¬ 
cepted, rendered it visible. 

Mt. Hood was attempted as early as 1845 by Joel Palmer 
and again in 1847 by George L. Carey, formerly of Boston; but 
the first of these mountains to be successfully climbed was 
the beautiful St. Helens, 9750 feet, in the summer of 1853, by 
Thomas J. Dryer, editor of the Portland Oregonian , which he 
had started in December, 1850, and which he continued to edit 
until 1861, when he became Commissioner to the Hawaiian 
Islands. In the account published in his newspaper he says that 
the party consisted of Messrs. Wilson, Smith, Drew and himself. 

The following summer, August, 1854, Dryer succeeded in 
reaching the summit of Mount Hood, 11,225 feet, although lie 
estimated its height 18,361 feet, “ even more lofty than Mount 

1 Samuel Hood (1724-1816). 

2 Alleyne Fitzherbert, Baron St. Helens (1753—1839). 


62 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


Shasta and heretofore unexplored.” The editor and his com¬ 
panions, William Barlow, Wells Lake and an Indian, went on 
horseback to the foot of the mountain and were gone from 
Portland just a week. There were three other gentlemen in 
the party, but they gave out before reaching the top. 

Each took some provisions and was provided with well made 
creepers, iron socket mountain staffs, with hooks, ropes, etc., etc. — 
the same kind that we used in ascending Mount St. Helens last year. 
We commenced the ascent from the southeast side. . . . The Indian, 
who had now a good pair of creepers, and a good mountain staff, 
seemed determined to go up as far as the “ Bostons ” 1 could ; although he 
could not be induced to lead the way or even go between us. For 
nearly two hours there was nothing said. Finally at 2.30 o’clock p.m. 
we attained the summit. 

Mt. Adams, 12,307 feet, the next to the highest of the moun¬ 
tains in Washington, was climbed in 1854 by Colonel B. F. 
Shaw, Glenn Aiken and Edward J. Allen, and Mt. Jefferson, 
10,500 feet, which ranks second in Oregon, was climbed on 
July 11th of the same year, by John Walker, P. Loony, John 
Allphin, William Tullbright and E. L. Massey, who were pro¬ 
specting for gold. 

Mt. Baker, 10,827 feet, only fourteen miles from the Cana¬ 
dian border, was conquered in August, 1868, by Edmund T. 
Coleman, after two unsuccessful attempts in previous years. 
He was accompanied by Thomas Stratton, Inspector of Cus¬ 
toms at Port Townsend, Washington, David Ogilvy, of Vic¬ 
toria, B. C., and a Mr. Tennant, an early settler of the region. 
Mr. Coleman was a landscape painter, living in Victoria and 
the author and illustrator of a folio volume with beautiful pic¬ 
tures, “Scenes from the Snowfields, being illustrations of the 
Upper Ice-World of Mont Blanc, from sketches made on the 
spot in the years 1855,1856, 1857, 1858.” The book was pub¬ 
lished in London in 1859 and dedicated to John Buskin. 

Mount Rainier, 14,363 feet in height, a continual source of 
inspiration to the nature worshipers living in the rapidly grow¬ 
ing cities along Puget Sound, is perhaps the grandest mountain 
in the United States. In 1857 Lieutenant (afterwards Briga- 

1 All Oregon and Washington settlers who had come from the Eastern United 
States were called “ Bostons.” 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


G3 


dier General) August V. Kautz, U.S.A., led a party to within 
a thousand feet of its top; but the culminating point was not 
reached until August, 1870, when General Hazard Stevens and 
Philemon B. Van Trump accomplished it. Sluiskin, an Indian 
provided by James Longmire, led them to the foot of the moun¬ 
tain, and they then had eleven hours of hard work before they 
reached the top, near which in an ice cavern they spent a mis¬ 
erable night “ freezing on one side, and in a hot steam-sulphur 
bath on the other.” General Stevens, who is still living in 
Boston, was born in Newport, R. I., in 1842, prepared for college 
at Chauncy Hall School in Boston, and had spent a year at 
Harvard when the Civil War called him to the front. His 
father, Major General Isaac I. Stevens, who was killed at the 
battle of Chantilly in 1862, had been the first governor of 
Washington Territory from 1853 to 1857. 

The Sierra Nevada, where exploration and climbing began so 
late, was curiously enough the first mountain system in North 
America to appear by name on any of the early maps. The 
range is shown on Munster’s map of 1540, but without a name. 
On Ramusio’s map in his “ Navigazioni et Viaggi,” published in 
Venice in 1556, it is given its present name. 

General John C. Fremont, returning from his first exploring 
tour to the Pacific Coast in the winter of 1844, was perhaps the 
first to climb any of the mountains of California. On Febru¬ 
ary 5th, his party camped at an elevation of 7400 feet, in lati¬ 
tude 38° 42' 26". The next day, so he reports, — 

we set out with a reconnoitring party on snow shoes . . . and in a 
inarch of about ten miles we reached the top of one of the peaks. Far 
below us, dimmed by the distance, was a large snowless valley, hounded 
on the western side, at a distance of about a hundred miles, by a low 
range of mountains, which Carson recognized with delight as the 
mountains bordering the coast. 

Mt. Shasta, 14,380 feet, was discovered late in the year 1826 
by Peter Skene Ogden, a young barrister of Montreal, who 
had gone to the Pacific slope in 1813 with John Jacob Astor, 
and at this time, in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company, 
was making a search for beaver skins from the company’s post 
on the Columbia River. Ogden’s father had gone from New 
York to Canada at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War and 


64 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


had risen to the position of Chief Justice. When Shasta was 
first climbed has not been ascertained. In September, 1862, 
when Josiah D. Whitney (1819-1896),chief of the Geological 
Survey of California, with his assistant, William H. Brewer 
(1828-1910), and C. Averill, clerk and commissary, succeeded 
in reaching the top, they supposed they were making a first as¬ 
cent, but they found on top, as Brewer graphically expresses it, 
“ a mixture of tin cans and broken bottles, a newspaper, a 
Methodist hymn-book, a pack of cards, an empty bottle, and 
various other evidences of a bygone civilization.” 

Professor Whitney, who organized the California Survey in 
1860 and remained at its head for fourteen years, was a native 
of Northampton, Mass., a graduate of Yale, and had received his 
earlier training (1840 to 1842) on the Geological Survey of 
New Hampshire, where he was assigned successively to the 
region around Lakes Winnepesaukee and Squam and the wild 
country north of Dixville Notch. In his later years he was 
professor of geology in Harvard College. Before going to 
California he had occupied a similar post at the Iowa State 
University. Professor Brewer was a native of Poughkeepsie, 
N. Y., and a graduate of the Yale Scientific School, where after 
1864 he was professor of agriculture. 

In 1863 Clarence King (1842-1901), one of the most enthusi¬ 
astic of American mountaineers, joined the California Survey 
as assistant in geological field work. Born in Newport, R. I., 
he had spent his boyhood summers among the Green Moun¬ 
tains of Vermont. He had graduated from the Scientific 
School at Yale, studied a few months with Louis Agassiz, and 
in May, 1863, drawn on by the account of Whitney’s and 
Brewer’s ascent of Mt. Shasta, set out with his college friend, 
James T. Gardiner (1842-1912), for California. Gardiner, 
who was afterwards (1876-1886) director of the State Sur¬ 
vey of New York, was for a year engaged in constructing earth¬ 
works around the harbor of San Francisco, after which he too 
joined the Survey. In September King and Brewer climbed 
Lassen’s Peak, 10,577 feet. The following year they all went 
into the High Sierra. In July, 1864, with Gardiner and 
Charles F. Hoffman, the topographer of the Survey, they 
ascended and named Mt. Silliman, 11,623 feet, — in what 


APPALACHIA, VOL. XIII 


Plate XVI 




EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS 


(I) GEORGE DAVIDSON (1825-1911) 
(3) JOHN C. FREMONT (1813-1890) 
(5) A. B. ROGERS (1829-1889) 


(2) JOSIAH D. WHITNEY (1819-1896) 
(4) HAZARD STEVENS (1842- ) 

(6) CLARENCE KING (1842-1901) 













EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


65 


is now the Sequoia National Park — and while Brewer and 
Hoffman went up Mt. Brewer, 13,880 feet, King with Richard 
Cotter prepared for a still higher mountain, which they climbed 
and named Mt. Tyndall, 14,380 feet, the highest peak that had 
up to that time been ascended in the United States. From 
the top they discovered two higher peaks which they named Mt. 
Whitney, after their distinguished chief, and Mt. Williamson, 
after Major Robert S. Williamson (1824-1882) of the United 
States Engineers, well known for his topographical labors in 
the Pacific States. 

Mt. Whitney, 14,502 feet, proved to be the highest moun¬ 
tain in the United States. King, who at this time was only 
twenty-two, was ambitious to climb it and a few days later 
started, but had to turn back when within about four hundred 
feet of the top. It was seven years before he had a chance to 
try again. Ilis time was short and the weather was bad. In the 
mist and rain he got up what two years later was proven to him 
to be the wrong peak. Hastening westward again, he climbed 
the real Mt. Whitney on September 19,1873. In the mean time, 
however, two other parties, the first, August 18, consisting of 
John Lucas, C. D. Bengole and A. II. Johnson, had reached the 
top. During the winter of 1865-1866 King explored the desert 
region of southern California and Arizona as scientific assistant 
to General McDowell. Returning East he succeeded in obtain¬ 
ing the authorization of the Geological Survey of the Fortieth 
Parallel, of which in 1867 he was placed in charge. In 1879 
when the various Government surveys were consolidated under 
the name of the United States Geological Survey, King became 
the first Director, and so continued until 1881. King was cer¬ 
tainly a remarkable man and after his death many of his friends 
paid extraordinary tribute to his genius and his geniality. 
These tributes, published in 1904, make a most interesting 
volume. Edmund Clarence Stedman wrote : — 

I could not free myself from the illusion that he was a kind of 
Martian — a planetary visitor, of a texture differing from that of 
ordinary Earth-dwellers. It seemed quite natural that he should map 
out the globe, and bore through it to see of what it was made. 

W. D. Howells refers to “ his sunny gaiety ” and adds: — 

APPALACHIA XIII 5 


66 


EARLY AMERICAN MOUNTAINEERS. 


He has brilliantly fixed forever a phase of the Great West already 
vanished from actuality. 

John Hay’s tribute is still more charming: — 

We sometimes, though most rarely, meet a man of a nature so 
genial, of qualities so radiant, so instinct with vitality, that in connec¬ 
tion with him the thought of mortality seems incongruous. . . . Such 
a man was Clarence King. . . . He possessed to an extraordinary 
degree the power of attracting and attaching to himself friends of 
every sort and condition. . . . His reputation as a great physicist 
suffered somewhat from the dazzling attractiveness of his personality. 
It was hard to remember that this polished trifler, this exquisite wit, 
who diffused over every conversation in which he was engaged an iri¬ 
descent mist of epigram and persiflage, was one of the greatest sav¬ 
ants of his time. 

Clarence King and John Muir are the two men that come 
into the mind when the Sierras are mentioned. King’s book 
“ Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada ” appeared forty years 
ago, but Muir’s “ Mountains of California ” was not published 
until 1894, although his articles about the mountains began to 
appear in the magazines as early as 1872. In his recent book, 
“ My First Summer in the Sierra,” he tells us that his climb¬ 
ing began in 1869. From June 3 to September 18 he camped 
in the region around the Yosemite. July 26 he climbed Mt. 
Hoffman, “ the highest point in life’s journey my feet have yet 
touched.” September 1 he went up Mt. Dana, 13,050 feet. 
September 8 he wrote in his journal: — 

Day of climbing, scrambling, sliding on the peaks around the high¬ 
est sources of the Tuolomne and Merced. Climbed three of the most 
commanding mountains, whose names 1 do not know. 

Muir later distinguished himself as a glacialist in Alaska, 
where he discovered and studied in 1879 the great glacier that 
bears his name. 

The first mountain ascent in Alaska is probably the one 
chronicled in Appalachia in December, 1884, by George 
Davidson (1825 -1911), who in September, 1867, the year that 
Alaska was transferred from Russia to the United States, 
climbed the volcano Makushin, 5691 feet, on one of the Aleutian 
Islands. Mr. Davidson, who had been connected with the 


67 


Coast Survey for fifty years, all but the first five on the Pacific, 
died in California in 1911. Like John Muir he was an Hon¬ 
orary member of this Club. King, Brewer, Gardiner, Powell, 
and General Stevens were Corresponding members. 

Mt. Saint Elias, 18,090 feet, the giant of the Alaskan coast, 
named by the Russian sea captain, Vitus Behring, when he dis¬ 
covered Alaska in 1741, measured — imperfectly to be sure — 
by the French expedition in 1786, and sketched by one of 
Vancouver’s party in 1794, was not attempted until 1886, 
when the New York Times sent Schwatka, Libbey, and Seton- 
Karr. Three other attempts were made before 1897, when the 
Duke of the Abruzzi finally conquered it, — but this brings us 
into the present generation of climbers. 

Let us step back for a moment into the past and listen to 
the prophetic voice of John Pinkerton, who in his “Modern 
Geography,” published in Philadelphia in 1804, says of 
Alaska: — 

Iu general from the accounts of navigators who have visited this 
coast, it seems to resemble Norway, being a wide Alpine country of 
vast extent. . . . The alpine tract . . . may perhaps contain the 
highest mountains in North America, when completely explored by 
the eye of science. 

. More than ninety years afterwards Mt. McKinley, 20,300 feet, 
the highest mountain in North America, was discovered in this 
“ alpine tract.” 


SEP 22 1918 


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